“For if the willingness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has, not according to what one does not have. Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.” Abundance is God’s way of saying, “Take care of those who do not have what they need.””

Our world has fallen far from this ideal, and the gap between the rich and the poor continues to grow.

The design is this: if God blesses you with an abundance (money, time, anything), then His hope is that you are generous in sharing what He has given you. In doing so we live and learn to truly love one another. This lifestyle is evidence of the grace of God at work in the lives of His children, and places the gospel on display for all that they might believe in the Lord Jesus.

If you have more than enough, share it. If you don’t have enough, be willing to receive help from those who do. Let God take care of judging who is worthy.

See 1 Timothy 2:1-4 – “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

Time Magazine this week has a cover article on the bad rap “real Wisconsin” butter has taken over the past 40 years.

But I’m not here to rehash that debate.

How much organizational structure is the correct amount for any entity? My experience seems to validate my beliefs that the smaller the organization the less structure. As the entity grows in complexity or size then organizationally additional structure is needed to:

Ensure the left hand knows what the right is doing

Oversee execution of the common vision across disparate functions

Ensure no cross-purposes

Gain efficiencies through coordinated effort

In light of the purposes above one might logically conclude that too much organization can never be a bad thing. However over-organization can stifle the very thing is proposes to promote. As with everything mankind lays hand to, it can take on a life of its own. However, this phenomenon is not only relegated to large organizational structures. I have observed that even smaller organizations can do the same thing for the very same reasons.

At its core the “life of its own” phenomenon has more to do with power, either directly or indirectly. Someone may develop a big head or the “group” may elevate it’s own importance to the whole.

Case in point: In the 25% of my life I spent as part of America’s silent service I saw this over and over again. Our mission was to patrol the oceans of the world simply to wield the “Big Stick”. Ballistic Missile submarines have no other purpose than to retaliate should an unfriendly decide to launch a first strike. In order to do this effectively we hid. That’s it, plain and simple. Ready to launch within a few minutes, unable to be taken out. Should you decide to punch the U.S. we’ll hit you back, and we can have our birds in the air while your’s are still on the way.

Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is defined on Wikipedia as:

a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. It is based on the theory of deterrence where the threat of using strong weapons against the enemy prevents the enemy’s use of those same weapons. The strategy is a form of Nash equilibrium in which neither side, once armed, has any incentive to initiate a conflict or to disarm.

Back to my topic. During my tours on three ballistic missile submarines it became apparent that oft times the nuclear engineering team viewed their purpose as the primary mission of the submarine; their function to maintain the power plant was “to have something for the power plant to push through the water”. Don’t get me wrong. Their mission was vital to the success of the submarines mission. With them there would be no mission. However, they had lost sight that each job on board the submarine was equally critical in its unique way.

My job classification concerned the actual targeting and launch systems computers. Of the160 man compliment on board, there were only 6 of us. Without us it was only a matter of time before the redundant systems fail and the missiles on board were unable to be launched. But my job was no more critical than the 6 Culinary (formerly known as Mess Management) Specialists who prepared meals 4 times/day, day after day for 72 day stints.

So which is better butter or margarine? It depends on what you’re focused on. It depends on which “evil’s” you are trying to counter.

Just in from the AP “Muslim who converted to Christianity sues church for publishing baptism news“.

OK, so you’re Muslim, you convert to Christianity but you don’t want it shouted from the rooftops. I can understand this. In fact it’s not all to uncommon in much of the world today. If the underground church in many nations surfaced and shouted from the rooftops one might argue, “Who will carry on the work?”

This is kind of a mixed bag. As believer’s we should tell the world – but even the early church as recorded in the New Testament used wisdom and discretion. We do not see accounts of believers en masse shouting from the rooftops. They were courageous and shared their faith – sometimes publicly, sometimes privately but I can’t think of a single instance where it was done secretly or the other extreme “in your face”.

We in the “free” world have a difficult time grasping what much of the world goes through when accepting Jesus Christ as savior and denouncing the former ways.

Additionally, I do not expect a new convert to understand the instruction given in 1 Corinthians 6 regarding taking our lawsuits before the world. However, not knowing any background details it seems to me that there was:

an inadequate relationship breech by one or both parties so that his man had no one to talk to about the harm the church needlessly caused him

or this man felt the response of the church was wholly insensitive

or he is simply seizing the opportunities of a litigious society

So where is all this headed, you ask? Discipleship 101. Maybe, just maybe, this could have been avoided if someone built bridges and took this man under their wings, nurtured, mentored and even advocated (albeit after the fact) with church leadership and this man to reconcile.

Close friendships have the best chance of avoiding the pitfalls of 1, 2, and 3 above. THAT’S what the Christian faith is about.

“He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'” Luke 10:27